The Western University of Timișoara launched the program starting with the academic year 2024-2025 "Saturday of students at UVT", a program that consists of carrying out activities at the university headquarters with secondary school students, from vulnerable social categories, with good educational results. The program takes place under the coordination of the associate professor dr. Theofild Lazăr and the university assistant. Dr. Andra Jurcă, from the Faculty of Sociology and Psychology.
With the involvement of the UVT Pre-University Environment Service, teaching staff and student volunteers, the selected students participated in various weekly activities, such as: socialization activities, artistic activities, computer science, geography, etc. The purpose of the program is to cultivate the pleasure of learning and the motivation to access higher education among students from vulnerable social categories and support them in educational and social integration, by developing new knowledge, skills and abilities in a non-formal and pleasant.
The activities are financed within a partnership with "AKADEMISCHE PATENSCHAFTEN e. V. ACADEMIC FUNDRAISING", a non-governmental organization in Germany, which has undertaken to sponsor this program for a period of five years. The activities take place on Saturdays, with groups of 20 students each.
In the first semester of this academic year, four such meetings took place within the program, in which a total of 79 students participated. The first activity was carried out by the students of the Faculty of Arts and Design, under the coordination of drd. Tămășanu Namaah Andrada, who held an interactive workshop with the students of Secondary School no. 15 from Timișoara, during which the learning of new skills was facilitated, encouraging students to express their imagination, modeling various small decorative objects in clay. The main theme of this workshop consisted of creating characters inspired by childhood memories, with the students being encouraged by the students to develop their imagination and creativity.
In the second activity, volunteer students from the Faculty of Chemistry, Biology and Geography, coordinated by the lecturer dr. Alina Satmari, held unique geographical workshops with the students of the School in Tomești, in a cartography laboratory. During the activity, the participating students made an interactive map of the places in our country they visited, mapped one of the interior gardens of the Western University of Timișoara, learned about the Braille alphabet and created tactile greetings for their blind colleagues from Iris Special Theoretical High School in Timișoara. These cards will be given to blind students on the occasion of an event organized by the French Institute in Timișoara.
The third activity was carried out by volunteer students from the Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics, the support being provided by the team of mentors from CoderDojo UVT (lecturer Dr. Alexandra Fortiș, Dr. Larisa Puiu and master's students Bianca Păun, Iustin Paulenco and Emanuel Rusu). The participating students were from the School of Topolovațu Mare, carrying out programming and graphic design activities. At the end of the activity, the students left with a game they made and many beautiful memories!
The last activity this year was carried out by volunteer students from the Department of Education Sciences, under the coordination of Ms. lect. university Dr. Eugenia Riemnschneider. Together with the students of the Secondary School in Izvin, they carried out activities that combined creativity with the winter holiday period in which we are. "The Magic of Winter" and "Waiting for the Winter Holidays" were the themes chosen to inspire students to create works using various techniques. The works made by the students were used in an exhibition.
The activities will continue every Saturday next year as well, with interested schools contacting the Service for Relations with the Pre-university Environment of UVT for appointments at the email address: srmp@e-uvt.ro.
